The research portfolio at The Ohio State University College of Optometry has grown dramatically over the past ten years. This portfolio of patient-based vision research, funded through cooperative agreements and industry sources, focuses on the areas of such clinical disorders as myopia, keratoconus, low vision, and children's vision problems. Although the Principal Investigators of these projects train graduate students, their grants do not fund PhD students in the same way that traditional independent investigator funding traditionally has. The Training Program outlined in this application will provide a minimum of two and maximum of three years of support for each of three doctoral trainee positions. It will supplement the existing NEI funding for graduate students (one K12 award with two trainee slots, one postdoctoral and one doctoral, and one K23 award at present) and will enable selected students in the PhD program to spend maximum time in pursuit of an enriched research training experience because they will not have to serve as clinical instructors or teaching assistants to support themselves. The trainees'educational experience will be broadened by inclusion of required coursework in epidemiology, biostatistics, and the basic biological sciences through The Ohio State Colleges of Medicine and Biological Sciences to enable our graduates to engage in patient-based, basic, and/or translational research in the future. The success of the program will be measured by the ability of its graduates to obtain extramural funding as vision scientists in academic settings.